


Stay

by DaughterofElros



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:15:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofElros/pseuds/DaughterofElros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just before the end of Season 1. </p><p>The world is so screwed up that was should be wrong feels right</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

**   
**

He climbed the stairs wearily, the same stairs he had climbed a hundred, a thousand times or more in his life. Climbed them for what might very well be one of the last times he got to. Funny how perfect carpeting and polished wood that had never been important before held some sort of significance now. He paused, his hand on the door handle and glanced down the hall to the guest room. Where Clare was staying.

He thought about turning invisible, so that it didn’t look odd, him checking in on his niece in the night. He almost laughed at himself for that thought. As if an invisible man was unusual. And why was it, he wondered that concern for her might be considered odd. When he babysat for Nathan’s kids, he checked on them three or four times a night- Clare was Nathan’s kid too. Peter’s niece. Except… Nathan’s kids- he didn’t really think of Clare as part of that group- Nathan’s kids were young- coloring with Crayons learning how to play baseball. Peter didn’t think about them the way he thought about Clare. Clare, he reminded himself, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown, is a girl. A Girl who’s your niece, no less. But more than that too. A girl he’d flown halfway across the country to save before he’d even known her. The girl who’d helped him understand who he was. The girl who, when she came to visit him at the police station in Odessa, had made it impossible to concentrate, be cause he was distracted by how pretty, how sweet, how strong she was. The girl who held his life in her hands.

He sighed, bit his lip, tapped with his fingertips on the door, lightly, too lightly to wake her up. He was being foolish, he knew, and decided to turn around, go to his own room and go to sleep, when she opened the door.

“Hi” Blonde hair, blue satin pajamas- obviously from mom- the woman adored Satin Pajamas, and foisted them to everyone in the world. Beautiful. Sensual. Enticing...

Niece.

“I, uh…was just going to check up on you. See how you’re doing.” He folded his arm across his chest. A small smile crept across her lips.

“Well, its been several days now since the last time I died. So I guess the question is, How are _you_ doing?”

“Oh. Pretty well, I guess. I mean, considering.” A pause then, and before it had a chance to become awkward, “I’m gonna head to bed. I just wanted to…” to what? See you? Look at you? Talk to you? “…see how you were doing. “’Night.”  Back to his room then, secure behind the pristine white door, in a sea of blues- he had gotten the room redecorated when he decided to begin working on his nursing degree. He sat on the barely-made bed, limbs heavy but mind whirling, staring out at the city lights.

A Knock on the door. Opened it to find Clare, odd expression on her face, caught between joy and tears.

“Clare. What-”

Biting her lip. Slow to start speaking, like she wasn’t sure if what she was saying was acceptable, or exactly what she meant. “I thought you died today. I thought you were gone. And I was… terrified.”

He didn’t know how to respond, whether he should even attempt to phrase his own confusion, but she continued.

“You were the first person I met who made this…ability make any sense. You gave me courage, gave me hope. I felt connected to you, in a way that I don’t even know how to explain. I thought about you all the time. And then…I got here, and feel like in some ways, I’ve already lost you.”

He tried to smile, reassure her.

“Already? You haven’t lost me, Clare. We’re related, we’re family.”

He heard the breath catch in her throat, regret, or disappointment, or something in her voice.

“I know.”

The implications in her tone, in her eyes hit him like a sack of bricks, and every muscle tensed, his blood sang in his veins. She is your niece, Your niece. Nathan’s daughter. He ran the mantra through a couple of times before he trusted himself to speak, but even then he didn’t have words to say, Just pressure in his lungs that finally forced him to breathe. And with the breath came the only thing he could think of to say.

“Clare” He wanted so badly to reach out to her, to comfort her, hold her but knew if he moved to do so, he might just do something inappropriate- something like kiss her instead.

“I just thought you should know.” She whispered, and he could see her heart breaking behind those brilliant blue eyes, even though there were no tears. “I mean, I know you could never, you know, feel the same, but I wanted to tell you…”

He took the step then, just the step and pulled her to him quickly, before he could be tempted to do anything else. One arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders, fingers tangling in the blonde hair, hair into which he couldn’t help but mutter her name.

“Peter” it was a sigh, muffled, half spoken into his chest, but it went straight to his groin. He knew he had to let her go, and so after a brief moment, he stepped back a bit, his hand trailing along the smooth skin of her arm, her hand. But she wasn’t necessarily cooperating, because her fingers moved under his, and he just couldn’t let go.

 It was like being a teenager again, his heart in his throat, because he knew that this was wrong, they needed to let go. Wrong on so many levels, even if they didn’t share Petrelli blood she was young, too young. Fifteen. But he couldn’t pull his hand away, couldn’t make his eyes slide away from hers. Couldn’t pull away as she leaned in to him, couldn’t stop himself from leaning in to her just the tiniest bit. Their lips touched, the ghost of a kiss, then a bolder move as she pressed her lips to his fully, but all too briefly.

What he saw in her eyes surprised him. Not the innocence that should be there- just the remnants of it, mostly covered over by maturity that she shouldn’t know, not this early in life. A maturity that he himself hadn’t even found until a few months ago. He felt his heart break, knew she could see it in his eyes and knew that he didn’t have the strength for this, holding back .Felt himself slipping, Knew he was giving in. Knew she could see it too in the instant before he pulled her too him again, but this time, let himself feel- her body in his arms, pressed against his own, her hair, silky in his hand as; her lips, firm under his own, sweet, supple- kissing him back just as eagerly, as intently as he was kissing her. The taste of her- addictive and so… so right.

Finally, the willpower to break the kiss, to pull away, to breathe, but not to let go of her completely. He ran his fingers through the hair that fell over eye, pushing it back, drinking in the sight of her opening her eyes- flushed cheeks, slightly swollen lips that arced into a smile as she examined his face in the spill of light from… from the open door. She followed his gaze and misinterpreted its meaning- or maybe just anticipated his thought process.

“I want to stay.”

“Stay?”

‘With you. Tonight.”

She couldn’t mean… But she did. He knew she meant what his brain thought she did, understood that he should put his foot down, refuse, send her back to her room. But he knew that he wouldn’t. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t.

“Clare, we shouldn’t…” helpless because if she left now, it might kill him. She shook her head, reached over and closed the door.

“I don’t care”

What response did he have to that?

“Okay.” He flipped the lock, pulled her farther into the room kissed her again, distantly noting how exhilarating it was to feel her delicate hands gripping the fabric of his dress shirt, or unbuttoning his pants- how satin felt against his wrists as he lifted her shirt over her head, how her skin felt, smoother than the satin under his hands his lips. It was hard to remember how innocent she was when she was more sensual, more confident than most any woman he’d bedded in the past. He forgot about it, in fact until he brought her to the first peak and nearly forgot about it again when she reached for him, intent on taking him with her. It took all his willpower to be gentle with her.

He held her in his arms afterward and they stared out at the lights.

“They’re so beautiful.” She said to him

“I know” it ripped at his heart to think that in a few days, it could all be gone. Either that, or he would be. She could tell what he was thinking, and as she kissed him then, and they moved together again, there were tears in both their eyes.

 


End file.
